The Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) announced five new investments today totaling about $50.5 million to help five Federal agencies improve their digital customer experience (CX) and enhance their data protection efforts.
The TMF, which is administered by the General Services Administration (GSA), was created in 2017 under the Modernizing Government Technology Act to provide money to Federal civilian agencies to undertake tech modernization projects. The fund in recent months has been spending down some of the $1 billion cash infusion it received from Congress in 2021.
“The Technology Modernization Fund is entering its sixth year investing in projects that are having real human impacts on the ways the Federal government provides services to the American people,” TMF Executive Director Raylene Yung said in a statement. “Digital-first investments like these to modernize operations and protect data increase public trust and make it easier for people to get the services they need.”
The largest award unveiled today is $16.2 million for the National Transportation Safety Board to improve its CX and build a unified digital experience on NTSB.gov, making it easier for users to find information related to investigations and safety recommendations.
The TMF also awarded $15.2 million to the Department of Labor (DoL) to enhance its data and application security by accelerating the implementation and deployment of a cloud-based security framework.
Additionally, the fund announced $9.2 million for the Bureau of Land Management to digitize records for easier public access, leveraging optical character recognition and natural language processing to reduce the effort to publish land records by 80 percent.
The other awards include $7.4 million for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to digitize forms at scale – streamlining veterans’ access to services such as health care and disability benefits – and $2.5 million for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to add contractor personnel and resources to modernize the agency’s Analytical Radiation Data System (ARadDS) – the only nationwide radiation monitoring system in the United States.
“Technology Modernization Fund investments are enabling agencies to make their digital ecosystems more secure and resilient – and deliver a digital experience that meets today’s expectations,” said Clare Martorana, Federal CIO and TMF Board chair.
“The TMF investments we’re announcing today demonstrate that when we make smart, sound technical investments, we can maximize the impact of taxpayer dollars and propel agencies to work more efficiently and improve service delivery for the millions of Americans counting on them,” Martorana added.
With these new investments, the TMF now manages over $750 million for 45 investments across 27 Federal agencies.
In March, the White House proposed $200 million of new funding for TMF in fiscal year (FY) 2024. However, the TMF is due to get no new funding in FY2024 under the Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) appropriations bill approved in June by the House Appropriations Committee’s Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee. The TMF funding figure for FY2024 may well change during the lengthy appropriations process.
